Yesterday, I assisted my mom in one of her corporate workshops—a session on Crew Resource Management for an aviation company. I had been helping Mom out with her training engagements, albeit irregularly, for years now that it came as a surprise to me when I felt terribly sentimental and nostalgic then, while watching her engage her mostly-male audience.
I missed our tandem speaking engagements, I realized. I missed being “Mom’s Little Helper” and watching her in action while I played a supporting role, setting up her laptop and clicking on the mouse while admiring this beautiful, energetic, and vivacious woman who brought me into the world. Our family has been through so many struggles that, in recent years, I have come to see my mother only as a shadow, a fragment, of her former self. I had forgotten that underneath the worry lines and the age spots and the love flubber is a woman who single-handedly raised three strong-willed, independent, and loving children—and a grandchild who shows greater strength and wisdom than her turning-eight-year-old self makes apparent. My mom is one “heaven of” a woman—and I had taken her for granted.
Then the answer to my why-on-earth-is-this-happening-to-me experience came: Humble yourself, Child, the Universe was telling me. You’ve gotten so used to being on top of your game that we had to bring you back to the ground for a little while.
Man… I had become proud and arrogant and haughty over the past two years! Back in 2005, just after having survived our “Kangkong Days,” I took on the role of breadwinner and provider for my mom and my brother. With only my freelance writing career and my inner fire to back me up, I restored our phone lines and our Internet access, paid for the monthly bills and the groceries, put my brother through his last two years of high school, and gave everyone (including Mom) their allowances. It was both a challenging and an empowering time for me—but, like most people who feel a brush with power, pride overtook me and I became an angry, resentful person.
One family dinner came to mind. Mom had some students over, and my brother and I were discussing some expenses. I forget now what made me so angry then, but I remember standing up and yelling (in front of the food, in front of our guests), “Don’t forget WHO pays for everything in this house!!”
Money, a certain level of power, and PRIDE had turned me into a monster. (Bouncey, remember the gift wrapper-tearing incident at home? Yessss… A horrible creature I turned out to be.) Indeed, pride is the gravest sin of them all.
And now that Life has forced me to bow my head down in prayer and lean on other people for a change, I understand how important it is to learn how to ask for support—just as it is important to know how to give it. I really became such an arrogant, haughty bitch in those days that it humbles me greatly now to see my beloved and my good ol’ mom backing me up all the way with nary a word of complaint. Life really has a funny way of teaching us our lessons.
The future looks brighter for me now—some very interesting developments have restored my confidence and my drive these past few days—but I DO know now that success REALLY isn’t just about money or influence. It’s also about having the people you love most by your side through thick and thin (and especially through your most pig-headed days), and knowing that you are (and will be) loved even when you’re at your most unlovable.
(Originally posted on Multiply: 30 August 2007)
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